Planning content and carrying out social media posts on a regular basis is a challenging part of marketing your small business. You might not have the time, the resources, or the energy for content planning and posting, so social media gets pushed to the back burner. However, we have a few tools and strategies to make it a little bit easier for you. We’re going to break it down step by step.

Step 1: Strategizing a Social Media Post

Before you do anything, you need to strategize. This means bringing your business’s goals to the forefront and planning your content around that. For example, MP Consulting’s goal as a business is to support other small businesses so we create and share content that achieves that goal; such as: tips and tricks that small business owners can utilize, important social media news, marketing strategies, etc. 

The easiest way to strategize is to decide how many posts per month work for you – you can even break it down further into weeks. Most businesses opt for at least 2 posts a week. Once you know how many posts per week you want to share, you’ll need to come up with the topics. 

We find that creating “content buckets” is the easiest way to do this. These buckets could include customer reviews/testimonials, product spotlights, behind the scenes content, a funny reel, a quote/advice for your followers, employee spotlights, and any updates about your business.  Utilizing these “buckets” helps maintain consistency month over month but also makes things easier and more efficient.

Still scratching your head about what to share?  Another quick way to spark creativity is to search for upcoming holidays. They could be as big as Christmas or even as small as National Chocolate Day – as long as you can tie the holidays back to your business and your goals, they’re fair game! 

Step 2: Planning & Shooting Content

After you’ve come up with your ideas for the month, it’s time to plan all the details. One of these details is content (example: photos or videos). If you’re posting to X (former Twitter), Threads, Facebook, or LinkedIn, it’s okay if you don’t have any digital content to go with it. You can just type your copy, and that’s that. 

If you’re posting to Instagram or choose to include digital content with one of the aforementioned platforms and you’re feeling stuck on what photo to include, going to Canva to whip up a graphic or to a stock photo website can give you what you need in desperate times – Pinterest works really well for this! This isn’t ideal, but if you need to get your message out ASAP and don’t have time to shoot content, this is the way to go.

However, if you do have the time to shoot content, it should be thoughtful. Before you shoot any content, you should have a shot list in place to remind yourself exactly what you need. Scrolling on Instagram or Tik Tok may seem like a waste of time when you have so many other things to worry about, but it can actually give you inspiration for your shot list. Look at what others in the industry are doing and play off of that.

If you want to post about a new product, take the time to plan out a video of yourself or an employee explaining the product and using it. If you want to post an employee spotlight, take the time with that person to plan out a mini photoshoot so that you can get the best possible photo of them.

Once you have your content, it’s time to put everything together. You can make a spreadsheet and keep it super simple, or there are also online social media content planner tools that help you lay out your entire calendar. 

A few tools that we love and use daily are Airtable and Metricool. 

Step 3: Scheduling and Posting

Finding a scheduling platform that works for you can change your life – we’re not being dramatic. A good scheduling tool like Metricool is like having a personal assistant!  Once you’ve done all the strategizing and planning, the scheduling takes care of the rest for you. You won’t have to take time out of your busy work day to craft an entire post and make sure it gets out. 

When you break it down, it’s only three steps. Planning in advance will make it easier for you and help you be more intentional with your digital marketing.  Social media is a crucial tool in the success of your small business so finding a way to prioritize building a social strategy is imperative.  Don’t push this off any longer!

With that being said, if you try and still feel like you’re struggling, don’t let it hold you back. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level and feel like you need some help, it’s time to consider partnering with a team of experts (like us!) who can transform your content strategy and deliver exceptional results.